Here are the patch notes for this morning's game update (taken from the patcher):

*** Highlights ***

- Erollisi Day is coming! To get you in the mood, appropriately-themed items are available now on the Marketplace. Erollisi Day hats compatible with the Hero's Forge feature are also dropping from mobs throughout Norrath.- New Hero's Forge wizard hat ornaments are now available! One can be purchased from Keliss Arden in Plane of Knowledge, and five more are available as drops. - Warriors have a new Heroic Blade activated AA available. Respect!- Many spawn locations for Collection items in Rain of Fear zones have been moved. This should resolve previous problems with unreachable or bugged locations.- Mercenaries level 90 and above now regenerate hit points faster when out of combat.

*** Items ***

- The duration of the new Thorny Shield is now 30 minutes.- Adjusted all stats on cultural weapons from Rain of Fear. Two handed weapons have received a noticeable increase.- Players are no longer awarded raid currency while in a template (shroud). If you leave the template and remain in the zone, the currency will be granted to you shortly.- The Ancient Wisdom of Dagarn focus now works on Damage over Time spells.- Lowered the damage on Meljeldin, Bane of Giants, as it was higher than intended.- Added descriptions to Rain of Fear all/all items stating the classes which might find the gear most useful.- Changed the focus spells on Silver Dagger of Destruction and Staff of the Silent Star to Sympathetic Alleviating Burst VI.- Removed the backstab damage from Nevederia's Horn, as it's secondary only.- Increased spell damage on the Rain of Fear all/all gear intended for Wizards and Magicians.- Terrormotes can now be purchased from Armorer Jean Wenlaris and Ilana Sunmire in Shard's Landing.- Terrormotes now have a chance to drop from dragons in Temple of Fear's Fall.- Lowered the amount of coin being dropped by the lesser dragons in Temple of Fear's Fall.- The Refurbished Puppet familiar should now have stats similar to other familiars. You can also place it in your house.- Banded Feather Streak and Taeinus' Fury Bands now have a fire focus.- Ancient Wurm Hide Greaves in Temple of Fear's Fall now have more appropriate stats for the classes that can wear them.- Shield-Like Remains can now be used by all priests and casters.- The Soulstones used by the Priests of Shadow in the Guild Lobby to summon your corpse have had their recommended and required levels adjusted to reflect their intended level ranges.- Slightly increased the drop rates for Oath of Marr and Xorbb's Caged Hatred.- Vulak'Aerr in Temple of Fear's Fall now awards Crystallized Fear when defeated.- The Caged Aggressive Rat is now heirloom.

*** Quests & Events ***

- Danela's Stand (Raid) - The spell Instilled Fear now works as originally intended.- Temple of Fear's Fall - Reduced the frequency and damage of Vulak'Aerr's rampage and AE rampage.- Guardian of the Gate - Increased the time it takes one of the executioners to get to the chopping block. All of them now take more than 110 seconds to get to their destination.- Guardian of the Gate - Increased the time between executions to reduce possible overlap. Increase was from 65 seconds to 130 seconds.- Guardian of the Gate - Added a short stun and feign to the target of the execution to ensure that they stop moving so that they do not accidentally break their executioner's mark.- Guardian of the Gate - Added a personal message to the target of Findlewill's fireballs to give another way for the target to know they are in danger.- Delivering artifacts to Librarian Hemfar in Crescent Reach for the Serpent Seeker's Charm of Lore should no longer result in reward sets that do not have titles.- Gouzah Safari - Players will no longer be kicked out of their instance early.- Evil Afoot - Killing the Iksar Masters guarding the remains of Master Tynn will no longer halt your progress.

*** Spells ***

- Viral spells will no longer improperly affect campsites and guild banners.- Rain spells will no longer improperly use up their max target count on non-combat NPCs.- Fixed an issue where short-term debuffs were not being removed when players were resurrected.

*** NPC ***

- Chief Administrator Grigano has retired from patrolling the Ship Workshop and will now only make appearances during the mission 'Administrative Assassination.'- A wayward elemental in Katta Castrum has been taught to avoid appearing inside of stone walls.

*** AA ***

- Cleric - Burst of Life and Beacon of Life no longer share an ability timer.- Cleric - Blessed Chains has been moved to a new timer.- Enchanter - Moved Eldritch Rune to a new timer to resolve a conflict with Veil of Mindshadow.- Ranger - Removed the spell shield component of Third Spire of the Pathfinder to prevent the ability from fading prematurely.- Warrior - Warriors have a new Heroic Blade activated AA available. Respect!- Fixed an issue that was preventing Berserkers from being able to achieve their max AA cap achievement.

*** Achievements ***

- I'm a People Person! - The achievement now clearly states that you must slay Guktans rather than Frogloks to complete the achievement.- A new achievement has been added: Fearspeaker.- The Fearspeaker and Rain of Fear Challenger achievements now grant a reward.

*** Progression Servers ***

- Savil Tranquilsong now spawns when Dragons of Norrath is unlocked.

*** Miscellaneous ***

- Returned the caps on these skills to their previous values: backstab, dragon punch, tail rake, round kick, tiger claw, and eagle strike.- Many spawn locations for Collection items in Rain of Fear zones have been moved. This should resolve previous problems with unreachable or bugged locations.- Mercenaries level 90 and above will now regenerate hit points faster when out of combat.- Logging into the game while in a monster shroud no longer results in a message saying that you have been granted the Summon Tome of the Hero's Journey AA.- Zoning from the dream version of Feerrott to Rathe Mountains should now point you in a more intuitive direction, rather than facing you toward the Feerrott zone line.- Fixed an issue that prevented the sale of Krono during bartering transactions when the seller only had one Krono.- Fixed an issue where players were not able to send money via parcels immediately after they had retrieved a parcel.- Fixed a rare client crash related to edit boxes.- Fixed a client crash related to reloading the UI while certain dialog windows were open.- Tweaked the texture loading logic when in the Guild Lobby or the Bazaar to prevent out-of-memory crashes. The functionality should be unchanged in other zones.- Fixed an issue where hair and head gear would disappear when zoning or when wearing robes at the character select screen.- Fixed an issue where Erudites' helms would not be visible if they swapped between old and new style robes.- The relative percentage of hate will now be properly calculated when NPCs assist on a pet tank.- Corrected an issue in Innothule Swamp and North Ro that prevented your compass from pointing you in the direction of the entrance to your LDON adventure.

*** UI ***

- Added the ability to filter items in the Bazaar based on prestige status.- Added the ability to filter augments in the Bazaar by slot type.- The audio trigger 'Enabled' checkboxes were not being set correctly when items were moved up and down in the list. The checkboxes are now being properly set.- The Guild Window will now properly update members' last login dates and levels when the members log in and when they experience level changes.

- Changed -EQUI_BazaarSearchWnd.xml

*** Previously Updated ***

- Widened the platinum column in the Bazaar search window, the Bazaar confirmation window, and the merchant window, so that platinum values in the single digit millions will not be cut off.- Resolved an issue where some players were shown incorrect 'Gold Days Left' values when they were Silver members and appeared to get incorrect days added when they consumed a Krono.- Many spawn locations for Collection items have been moved in Shard's Landing.- The algae-covered stones in Goru`kar Mesa, required for the Serpent Seeker's Charm of Lore, will no longer appear under the world.- Corrected an issue with the spell Instilled Fear within the Danela's Stand raid.- Fixed an issue with not getting the dagger in the Shard's Landing mission and raid.- The ring event in South Ro should now work properly, allowing players to progress on the Paladin 2.0 Epic quest.- The fight with Durunal in Wall of Slaughter should now work properly, allowing players to progress on the Paladin 1.5 Epic quest.- Fixed a bug in the Evantil raid that could cause the aggressive ants to become non-attackable if too many are allowed to remain up when the boss is killed.- Several merchants in Shard's Landing have received new spells to sell:-- Gilbert Songcryer stocks Song: Slaunk's Chant of Poison.-- Lirit T'Prakk stocks Scroll: Wuran's Decay and Scroll: Clutching Darkness.-- Varille Alyrinshar stocks Scroll: Slaunk's Spear of Venom.

Comments

my comment says it all you know what eq are like a patch to fix patches :) yes i also agree we need new HOTZONES well over a year now used to get 2 in one year pull ur finger out smedley.half the fun of eq is the lower lvls who wants to get to 80 next day thats boring play eq how it should be played AND CHANGE THE BLOODY HZ's let those who wanna be lvl 80+ do it the way most of us have had to i wanna be lvl 80 stop wingeing and lvl ur toons and not some rng plvl u so much todo in eq besides getting lvl 80+ ***** and moan about my comments im to old to care have ur say :)

The goal seems to be to progress characters to 80 asap. Right now most of the Hot Zones are part of the Heroes Journey quest line which is also designed to progress quickly to 80. If they change the Hot Zones, it will disrupt the fast track progress.

I don't necessarily think this is a good thing, but seems to be the only logical reason i can come up with.

i would have to agree ffs last update on hot zones was as of December 14, 2011 kinda need some new hot zones make peoples explore more , that's what i liked about them it made the lowbies want to go to older zones just for the fact bonus exp n some augs that drop in them.